Steve Ballmer fired Sinofsky, clearing the way for faster progress in mobile

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No one was more public as the face of Windows 8 than Microsoft exec Steven Sinofsky. As Windows Division President, his sudden departure from the company only two weeks after the Windows 8 launch turned heads across the world of technology. It’s easy to always view the departure of a long-time, key executive as a loss, and speculate on how the company will fill their shoes, but in this case Microsoft may have done itself a big favor. Even though Microsoft and Sinofsky are both working hard to make his leaving the company appear to be part of an organized transition, the poor timing, total lack of a plausible back story, and insider reports of an impromptu meltdown and summary dismissal add up to a more likely scenario that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had had enough. Now, our own sources tell us that the sudden dismissal — enacted by Steve Ballmer himself — was a surprise to both Sinofsky and his staff, but there is no shortage of speculation as to the reasons.

Whether it was a decade of Sinofsky’s foot-dragging when it came to tablets and touch-based interfaces, or the poor reception of the software on Microsoft’s flagship Surface RT tablet may never be known, but Sinofsky’s dismissal appears to have come about very suddenly. Clearly Ballmer will assume a more direct role in Windows management, with Windows VPs Julie Larson-Green and Tami Reller now reporting directly to him. Larson-Green is best known as a driving force behind the new Windows 8 UI and, prior to that, the Office ribbon bar. Reller, who is less well known, is a well-respected executive who came to Microsoft in its acquisition of Great Plains.

Sinofsky was not a team player

Since before the Windows 8 launch, we’ve been told that Sinofsky is smart and driven, but also exceeding hard to work alongside. Former members of the executive staff describe Sinofsky as “the most difficult and arrogant person they have ever tried to work with”, and as being “toxic to teamwork.” One anecdote reported by the New York Times, and confirmed by our Microsoft sources, says a lot about what he thought of himself and his peers. At a management offsite earlier this year, instead of making a scheduled presentation to the rest of Microsoft’s executive team on the progress of Windows 8, Sinofsky apparently told them to read the product blog, answered questions, and then left the retreat altogether. It’s hard to imagine mercurial Steve Ballmer putting up with that type of behavior in anyone — let alone a senior executive. Not wanting to rock the Windows 8 apple cart before launch is just about the only thing imaginable that would have kept Ballmer’s temper in check at that point.

Ballmer had been frustrated by Sinofsky before. Microsoft partners apparently had a reference design for tablet hardware ready in time for Windows 7. Sources tell us that Sinofsky refused to add support for it in Windows 7. Whether it would have been successful is hard to gauge, but it would have put Microsoft in the tablet market several years earlier, and possibly around the same time as Apple’s original iPad. However Sinofsky, to his credit, was in the middle of doing a yeoman’s job of turning the Windows ship around after the Vista release.

The Windows 7 stonewall wasn’t the first time Sinofsky had worked to crush a Microsoft tablet project. He is widely assigned responsibility by those involved for killing the Courier tablet project and helping drive the project’s leaders, Robbie Bach and J Allard, out of the company. As head of Microsoft’s Office division at the time, Sinofsky’s foot-dragging and de-emphasizing of pen and touch support in Office is blamed by ex-Microsoft employees we spoke with for the poor reception of Microsoft’s convertible laptops. Even so, Sinofsky doesn’t deserve all the blame for Microsoft’s slow progress in tablet computing. Other Microsoft veterans involved in the efforts, who spoke with us confidentially, blame the lack of focused product visionaries at the highest levels of the company.

Sinofsky’s run-ins weren’t limited to tablet computing initiatives. The Wall Street Journal’s well-connected Kara Swisher even links him to the departure of Stephen Elop for Nokia. With Sinofsky’s aggressive attitude towards his peers, it is not hard to imagine some fireworks when the modern, touch-centric Metro UI from Joe Belfiore’s Windows Phone group was destined to become the new Start screen for Windows 8. Whether Sinofsky’s traditional stubbornness helped cause the customer-unfriendly decision to dump the Start button or not is unknown, but it certainly isn’t a surprise that Metro and the desktop don’t play nicely with each other. Since Larson-Green is reported to have been one of the key drivers behind the Metro UI design, it may be optimistic to hope for the Start menu to reappear anytime soon.

Did Microsoft lose a leader or an anchor?

There has been a lot of speculation about whether Microsoft took a risk by dismissing a key product executive during its largest ever Windows transition. Much of that speculation centers on who will provide the vision for Microsoft’s future. Those speculators are asking the wrong question though. From those I’ve talked to who have worked with him, Sinofsky was the guy who could “make the trains run on time,” but “didn’t have an ounce of strategic vision.” Perhaps that is an extreme characterization of Sinofsky, but a decade-long track record of pushing company visionaries towards leaving tends to reinforce it.

If Sinofsky was actually part of what has been holding back the evolution of first Microsoft Office and now Microsoft Windows, then the right question might be what kind of exciting new and visionary products will we see from an executive team that doesn’t have to fight with him for every step of progress?

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https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Personally I think that both Apple and Microsoft got their heads too far up eachother’s asses to see that even though a lot of people are buying mobile products (Because it’s a new technology) they’re shooting themselves in the foot by screaming just a tad too much ‘Mobile is the future and everything should bow to this’.

Microsoft has always been the marketleader in enterprise operating systems; Especially on desktops there was simply no suitable alternative, and active directory and the like where way ahead of their time. But will businesses collectively jump on Windows 8?…

Apple has always been the ‘new tech enthusiast’ kinda company that ditched old shells before they started itching; They ditched the floppy drive and the zip drive, they integrated new technologies and explored potentials such as firewire and the like, but they are starting to get mainstream. And I’m not saying that because I want to be extremely hipster or something. By ‘going mainstream’ I mean that they’re jumping like fleas on a new piece of meat and right now that seems to be the mobile market, and where Jobs would’ve pulled the strings to look it through first, shit’s really been hitting fans with OS X fans (Mountain lion anyone?) and the like.

I think this might be the year of the Linux desktop. I think people are just about getting ready for it, they’ve known computers for a while now and they want to try something new, as they hate where the market’s going. With Valve adding Linux to their supported OS list, and the community itself having come a long way in the past few years (Seriously, I got a high end crossfire multiscreen setup working OUT OF THE BOX!), 2013 might become an interesting year.

GatzLoc

Exactly, they’re starting to think their own shit smell nice; a lot of their success comes from having the money to venture into these things in the first place. It’s like claiming an artist is better because they make more money.

We’ll see how this goes, android is nice though. I put cyanogen mod 9 on her phone and the difference in speed from the HTC sense as well as having all the new options was amazing.

A lot of it is too much for a phone, but the beauty is it works just like that and when/if you do need to fix well you can. You play around with the options you feel like delving into, and leave everything else as is; after-all it’s still just a ‘phone’.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

You can easily boot up a live distro from USB, 99% of the stuff will work right out of the box, without any need for reformatting.

Of course you can stick to Windows 7 or even XP, but Microsoft is going to be pushy with Windows 8; Perhaps it’s time to explore alternatives?

If you want to try it, look at Sabayon, Mint, or Chakra linux. These are the upcoming ones that are doing really well, Ubuntu’s a bit of a hipster scum and they’re trying too hard to be special at times, Mint linux is basically Ubuntu ‘but better’. I personally really like Sabayon, which is based off Gentoo and supports both binary and source code packages; Extremely bleeding edge and fast, yet stable. But you should take a look of your own, every distro supports live booting from USB :)

GatzLoc

I used some version where you can construct a custom one with apps and run it straight off USB. I just don’t want the trouble right now, my computer just works and I’m getting off a bunch of other ish so my life just wants something calmer.

I just finished water cooling etc. so I’m just chilling with the computer stuff, putting time into others. I’ll take a look into those though, but windows right now plays games, browses internet, w.e w.e don’t really nothing more out of a computer.

If I get better perf. in games out of linux I’ll look into it but last I heard wine was just catching up while opengl was better.

Linux is from ground up a way way way better operating system than anything out there right now. Both it’s blessing and curse have always been it’s extreme flexibility and ability to cope with complex situations. Combined with everyone having their own view on how things are supposed to be done, you have so much choice and customizabilty it stuns most people. In fact, it stuns developers too; What do you support and what won’t you support? Luckily, years of evolution and tinkering from lots of parties has caused some stability, especially in the last few years this has manifested itself in a much more stable and better supported OS.

My point is, it may look like a deep rabbit hole, but in reality it’s extremely simple to set up and use. Those USB boot disks are very easy to set up, so if you feel like it, give it a spin.

GatzLoc

Alright, thanks bro. That’s the one I rememebred where linux ran better. Any builds you could reccommend for anything? I know I probably can’t run windows underneath to play music, and game on top but basically if you know something that can run mpc, maybe word, firefox, and a few steam games like m&b warband, or LOL decently preferably with better performance.

I’m googling right now but personal experience is always good.

Windows is obv. a POS. An ssd and 2500k shouldn’t feel ‘sluggish’.

edit – Hmm, fedora looks cool I’ll try it out. :)

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

I personally really like Mint, Sabayon and Chakra Linux. Valve is doing a closed beta with officially ported Valve games right now, really soon you can expect them to open this beta up to a wider audience, probably somewhere start of 2013, and that might be the right time to give linux a spin.

Also you can always run a virtual machine with Windows XP or 7 on a separate desktop, the virtualization layer hardly puts extra stress on the system because the linux kernel has a ton of optimizations for virtualization because of their long experience with it. VMware esxi, Citrix Xen, KernelVirtualMachines, etc are all linux based :)

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

Alexander — I’ve got Win 7, Win 8 & Linux (Ubuntu) right next to each other in my office, and use all three. While I completely agree Linux has come a really long way to being an “out of box” experience, and has plenty of unique features Windows doesn’t, I think it will take more than that to make it a real volume competitor with Windows on the Desktop.

It is splintered (per your email), which makes it difficult to talk about or support in a simple way, so for non-geeks it is problematic. It also (still) doesn’t have any really solid big-player support. If (for example) Google decided to change its ChromeOS push to one based on Linux, things might get pretty interesting. The feeble efforts by Dell and others so far aren’t enough to give it critical mass.

I think it’d be interesting, and probably good for the market, if some form of Linux emerged as a real third option for the desktop, along with Windows and Mac, but its going to take some doing.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

ChromeOS -IS- Linux. In fact as far as I know it’s a really close neighbor to Ubuntu. Speaking of Ubuntu, Did you know you can buy support from Canonical? that’s exactly why they’re becoming so big; They’re a big party that supports a linux distro.

In fact, almost every distro has a income model around selling support, this dates back all the way to Red hat and its derivatives.

Support out of the box is also available for free, with just a few clicks you’re on the forums or in the IRC channel where you can ask real people to help with your problems.

I don’t think support is the problem, I just think it’s the big scary unknown to many people. I’ve already installed various linux distros on PCs of my elders and they tend to really like it.

Also, when people say Linux they tend to think of Ubuntu, while this is by many people agreed to be a relatively mediocre example, you should look into Sabayon, Mint or Chakra some time. Especially if you like Ubuntu, you should look at Mint some time, it’s basically the same but they polished away the bullshit =p

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

Alexander — On ChromeOS/Linux, absolutely the issue isn’t technical. It’s just that the work Google is putting into ChromeOS doesn’t really help the Linux cause — which it could if Google switched direction a bit.

On the support, I’m not dis-ing the official support options, it’s more the “ask your friend or neighbor” stuff that works for Windows & Mac, but not for less common products. However, I am very interested that you’ve had good success installing it for non-technical folks. Did you decide to do that for cost reasons, or do you think Linux has some real advantages for them?

Thanks for the pointers to the other distros, I’ll have to try to make some time to give them a look.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Well, yea it’s “less supported” because it’s “less known”, but that’s just a matter of time because generally the community is really helpful and understanding when it comes to linux issues, and when the OS becomes more widely known, the general knowledge of how to will also increase.

About the installing for non-tech folks; there’s a few different cases, there was one guy who trashed his old harddisk, refused to upgrade his PC and refused to buy windows, really nitpicky guy, but I set him up with kubuntu 9.10 back then, and it’s been running smooth since. The little apps that were windows-only ran smoothly in Wine (Mostly office) and the rest was cross platform already (Firefox, thunderbird, flash..). Not sure he’s still running it because I haven’t spoken him in a long time, but he might as well be. Generally people don’t need much, they want Firefox/Chrome, Flash, and Microsoft Office. All of these run very smooth on a linux desktop. The update system in pretty much every linux distro is way more developed than that of Windows and Mac OS, you don’t only update the OS itself, but also the apps such as firefox and the like through it. There’s only one single update notification manager, and with one click and one password enter, they’re installing the updates.

Really, Linux has come a long way. It’s no longer the PoS it used to be where you spent hours on hours hacking in a terminal to get your video acceleration working, or some upgrade broke your window manager. It has its hiccups here and there, but it’s been really good lately, to the point that for most users, it will run smooth like butter on most any device. Even despite the lack of support from hardware makers.

Neon Frank

“…year of the Linux desktop.”

Oh yeah?

I’m tired of hearing that Linux is any kind of viable alternative to windows…its not because if it was then we’d see all major software offered for:

Windows
Mac
Linux

And we don’t

“(Seriously, I got a high end crossfire multiscreen setup working OUT OF THE BOX!)”

Great, and then what?

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Name me any “major software” and I’ll tell you it works on Linux. ;)

And by that quote I meant that they’ve come a really long way, even the most exotic of setups work out of the box now. There was no way in hell that you could even get that setup to run on ANY linux distro a few years ago. But things have changed, as I mentioned there, it works out of the box now.

these a list of major software available for Windows. how can Linux be viable when you cant use software like this? and im mentioning in my list videogames, or other silly software i might use.

and steam on linux? and how many games will it have? do you know what are the most important games for gamers? league of legens, World of Warcraft, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2. they wont go to Linux, and if people already have steam on Windows, i dont think they will go to Linux just to do the same they can in Windows that has more games. games that wont be for Linux are from blizzard, EA and alot of mmorpgs like aion, guildwars, rift, etc etc. wont go Linux either. good luck with your Linux, but being realistic it wont happen.

do you think only because Steam decided to port it to Linux automatically most games will go there? or new games? games its a business, they will be available for the platform used by gamers. not the platform that doesnt have directx only because a fat stupid guy thought it would be cool to port it to Linux.
i really dont care what you use, enjoy Linux, but seriously.. using logic and brain you would see there wont be any “Linux year” not this, next and probably never.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Aside the Adobe and other 3D modelling products which aren’t officially supported right now even though porting shouldn’t be too hard since they also have a Mac OS version, most things you name there run sometimes as good and sometimes even better that on Windows in Wine.
Additionally, of both the Unreal, Unity and Cry engine exist native Linux ports.
Steam on Linux will have similar or better support of games as Mac OS, except that perhaps some games can also be ran through Wine.

But instead of debunking all the applications you can name one could also just google the application name + “On Linux”. You’d be surprised about how much things really are supported.

DirectX is cool and all but as Valve and many others have already pointed out, incredibly slow and inefficient, and can be fully emulated/translated through Wine.

“Year of Linux” Doesn’t mean everyone will move to Linux and Windows will spontaneously combust or something, but a lot of people will probably give it a try, because they heard of it and want to give it a go. You’re not giving up any functionality and the better it gets supported, the more of your favorite Windows and Mac applications will get supported officially on Linux. It’s not some scary unknown you have to shun because it’ll bite you otherwise. If this will be the year of Linux or not is entirely dependant on whether people want to try it or not, if they do, and they like it, many people could stay. Either single or dualbooting it.

I’m a .NET developer. I know EXACTLY what you mean when you say “The year of Linux will never be!” but trust me, years and years of a very large and dedicated community does wonders. Even .NET has found roots in Linux, in fact, Microsoft has opensourced parts of the framework for these projects to blosom more.

I’m not saying this might be the year of the Linux desktop because I’m some hipster douchebag that wants to sound cool, I’m saying it because I really think Linux makes a chance at attracting people in its current state and perspectives.

MPinteractiv

And you know very well that .NET is crap on linux. WPF ? ASP.MVC.NET ? you cant do that with mono and you know it. Aside from that. Running a soft with wine and working with a soft with a genuine windows is not the same and you know it too. I spare you all the nasty bugs one endures with wine , incompatible hardware drivers , etc ….

People dont want to spend their time hacking to make software work , they just want to run the damn soft , and until linux makes software works like Mac Os or Windows makes software works it will stay a niche os or a server os.

EVery attempt to make linux viable economically for commercial software editors has failed, because linux just doesnt work that way for the end user. Ask a secretary or an accountant to use the cli , or to manage packages , compile a distrib from the source and you’ll get real about everything that is wrong with linux.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Mono is not an official Microsoft product and therefore not as well supported as .NET itself, however you’d be surprised how much is possible in Mono. It was really shit not too long ago but it keeps getting better. WPF isn’t supported yet because they say there isn’t much demand for it. ( http://www.mono-project.com/WPF ) but they’ve come a long way and when the demand and interest grows so will the project.

Most software runs fine in Wine. Though in the end, it’s just a fallback when the software you need isn’t available as native binary. Wine is a bridge for people that have Windows software that only runs on Windows AND refuse to dualboot. It’s a fairly good and mature bridge nowadays, that supports most of not all software available on the Windows desktop.

Driver support is an entirely different matter, the reason some hardware doesn’t play well with linux is because manufacturers refuse to support it. But thanks to succesful reverse engineering and kernel level supporting of new hardware the amount of hardware that won’t work with Linux nowadays is relatively small. As I said in my original post, even exotic things like AMD/ATI 6970 2x in crossfire with 4 screens of different resolutions, work out of the box. The endless hacking people associate with Linux and things that don’t work are much less of an issue than they used to be. Things really start to fall into place now. Especially with a big company like Valve officially opening up to Linux, things are changing.

As end user, nowadays you’ll never end up in the CLI anymore. Package updating is streamlined, and even automated in some cases.
I’ve installed various linux distros, ranging from Kubuntu to Sabayon, for people that knew absolutely zero about computers, and it’s been smooth sailing ever since the start.

I know about the problems that Linux had in the past. I’m not saying “next year will be the year of the Linux desktop” because I want to be cool and hipster, I’m saying it because I’ve seen things have changed, and it may actually be a really competitive, attractive platform for many people out there now that it has matured some more since the previous attempts.

http://twitter.com/arnislapsa Arnis Lapsa

When was the last time you checked linux world? AFAIK you can run asp.net mvc through mono just fine (though – why would you do that when there’s RoR, Django and alike). Package management is made quite easy with software manager thingy – you just open it, type in “pdf reader”, hit install and whoala – way easier than googling around, downloading manually etc. + it updates itself, every now and then. I would say that at least Ubuntu is quite far ahead when compared w/ Windows.

http://twitter.com/arnislapsa Arnis Lapsa

Played Starcraft2 on ubuntu through Wine for quite awhile. Like 3 years ago. It did run slower than on windows, but as I said – it was quite some time ago.

The point was that until major software is ported to Linux, Linux will remain a niche hobby OS.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

yes, unfortunately there’s no native support for most graphics industry products, then again, just a year or so ago no one would expect linux to ever properly support hardware graphics acceleration. it does now, even with more exotic setups that i can personally vowe for. i’m not sure what the performance of those products is like in wine, but have you tried it? most are ‘gold supported’ which usually means they run very smoothly.
also, those softwares are much less common on a desktop than something like firefox/chrome, flash, java etc. for the home user linux is perfect as it hardly needs any maintenance and is extremely flexibly configureable. but i’m sure once the masses start picking up on it then those products will also get supported.

WillyThePooh

The trend nowaday is minimum setup when bought new computer and new software are just listed out for them to pick. That’s why tablets are successful. If you ask the public on the street what is wine, they sure will tell you that you can get drunk with it.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

As sad as it is, that is true for a large part. There’s still plenty desktop crowds (like corporate), but especially that last quote is a genius analogy I’ll give you that :P

VirtualMark

Why do you think people would switch to Linux? It’s almost as if you’re assuming that everyone is unhappy with their old operating system – Windows 7 still works perfectly for all tasks. Windows 8 is a mess, but that doesn’t mean that people will want to learn a totally different operating system.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Because the new shift of operating systems is going to a direction people don’t like, and because both Apple and Microsoft are being pushy about their new OS.

Businesses have seen this coming for a while now and are preparing, which causes a lot more Linux hardware and software support is coming up in 2013. This, combined with people now getting more familiar and demanding on their desktops may cause people to give it a spin.

By the way, I never said switch. You can dualboot Windows 7/8 and Linux next to eachother and decide every time you reboot whether you want to start one or the other. I’m not saying Linux will replace Windows (..yet~), I’m just saying it might get more popular.

MPinteractiv

until Linux support all the legacy software Linux doesnt support right now ( and i dont want to hear about wine , it is a hack , and people are not hacker that will not buy 3000$ professional software just to try to run it on a hack ), Linux will never be a mainstream os. And will all the fragmentation on the Linux plateform, and the pedantic attitude of the linux community ( rtfm ), the lack of real support from sofware editors ( try to ask a question about running Adobe Premiere on wine on Adobe forums and you’ll see how much answer you’ll get ), Linux is just not a serious professional alternative for a lot of windows users. Windows may be crap , but Linux is clearely not a replacement of what is windows now. That’s why i have a mac , i get the best softs with support , and a posix envirronement. Yes it is not free , but i dont have free time neither to spend hacking things , i just want things to work without ugly wine hacks.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Wine is not a hack but a bridge. It is a very nice alternative to Windows if you refuse to dualboot it next to Linux.

Regardless, If you pay 3000$ for ‘professional software’ to use on a platform you know isn’t supported is silly. There’s plenty alternatives that DO support Linux and additionally it really isn’t that hard for Adobe to add Linux support to their products. They’re not doing it right now because there’s no demand, but where a demand is there’s a way. I’ll be honest and say I think graphics designers will be the last people to migrate to Linux if they ever feel like it, but saying it will never happen is just as silly as saying they’ll never move from Windows to Mac OS, or vica versa.

Community support is always dependant on the willingness of people to help you. They are not obligated to. They are helping you -for free-. If you want professional support, there is TONS of options, in fact a lot of distros base their revenue models on selling support instead of selling the OS itself.

In the end though, the great thing about Linux is that you can just dualboot it next to your existing environment to give it a spin. It has a very low entry requirement, it’s free, you can boot it from a USB stick, and most things work out of the box.

Pretty much all problems you name there are because it’s not popular enough to meet the demand requirements of companies to really take action towards it. And sure, plenty of people will agree with you, but there’s also plenty people that just want to try something new, and with Valve and other companies attempting to support it better and the demand slowly increasing, next year might be an interesting year.

It is a very mature platform. Pretty much everything around you already runs Linux (Android, car entertainment and info systems, tons and tons of servers…). So the kernel really isn’t a problem. The problem right now is that people get so much choice and customizability they get confused. That’s where distros come in, you choose a pack that fits you and you won’t have to adjust a thing.

WillyThePooh

I just surf the Linux Mint web site and found it is too technical for general public. For the same version, it has either Mate/Cinnamon desktop. Download from Waterloo university takes 4 hours according to the estimate. Too long when the apps now just take under 1 minute to download and install. Then I would think I need to know how to burn iso file into DVD or USB. Not a simple task for non-geek. So far, this is what my impression on Linux.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

Well yes, installing any OS is challenging to a lot of people. That isn’t really Linux’s fault ;) though the tools most distros give you, like the automatic bootable USB creators, does help lower the entry step, and you’d be surprised how many people are wanting to read through a lot of documentation just because they want to try something new. Even if it’s just 1% of the population, that’s still more than a few million people.
I’m not sure I get your application and OS download speed comparison, that’s a heavy case of apples and oranges and the speed depends almost entirely on your internet connection. If you have dialup, ask someone you know has faster internet, or for that matter, if they want to help you setup linux.

mori bund

There is no effing “year of the Linux desktop”! But maybe this might be the decade of the Linux desktop.

Otherwise I think your comment is spot-on.

https://twitter.com/xarinatan Alexander ypema

By “Year of the linux desktop” I didn’t really mean “EVERYONE DROP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND LOOK AT THIS LINUX THING” but more “Linux has come a long way and 2013 might be a year where people will be exploring alternatives, and since Linux has been doing so well lately things might get interesting”.

More in the same sense 2010 was “the year of the tablets”. Not because tablets were new, but because people suddenly realized they’re actually pretty neat.

Andy Rubin worked at Microsoft after they bought Danger. They would not listen to him so he quit. He went on to found Android, which was bought by Google. Google must listen to him because he is still there, improving Android and ruining Microsoft’s day.

It must really chafe that they had this guy and he got away.

mori bund

Seems like the meaning of the word “genius” isn’t anymore what it once was…

NicolaMantovani

Sinofsky slimmed down windows, now was the time to remove him. still sad for the departure of bach and allard…

Charles Jones

This article is big on speculation and light on facts. Sinofsky deserves a ton of credit for turning two major divisions around single handedly at Msoft in Office and Windows. Let’s face it though, he is not exactly a young engineer anymore, and his views on technology may not mirror what the current tech trends are and it was time to let him go. I say that in spite of the fact his replacements don’t appear to be much younger, but at the same time I think Ballmer can see they will embrace new tech a lot faster than Sinofsky per se. He has been a big factor in everything Msoft for so long it’s going to be hard to see him go as a close follower of Msoft daily, my best wishes go out to him and his family nevertheless.

http://profiles.google.com/vulpisfoxfire Christopher Forsyth

Well, this article does provide one useful piece of information–apparently this Julie Larson-Green is the one who badly needs to be smacked upside the head with a copy of the Idiot’s Guide To UI Design and run out of town on a rail? No wonder the Metro design is so bad, if it was created by the same person that birthed the hideousness that is the Ribbon interface. :-/ Windows Classic is a simple, clean, and above all *usable* interface–I really wish they’d quit screwing it up with the ‘shinier is better!’ fallacy.

Jeff Jones

I get the overall concept you were trying to communicate. But Windows 7 was much “shinier” than the flat plainness of Windows 8.

VirtualMark

I really can’t believe how many stupid people work at Microsoft these days. Simply having a choice of desktop or tablet would have satisfied most people. Also having the choice to completely ditch certain components of the OS would be nice, especially for SSD users. Why the hell does Windows take up 16GB+ just to switch on to the desktop?

I totally agree with you, VirtualMark, but since an OS who takes away choices (iOS/OS X) is so successful, Microsoft thinks they have to do the same.
What they don’t see see is, that an OS who gives choices is even more successful on the desktop (Windows) and on mobile (Android).

WillyThePooh

Not a choice of desktop/tablet. I and many people just want one device will able to do both. But both iPad and surface RT won’t meet my need as the total of my music, photos and videos are already more than 100GB. Loading 100GB up to the cloud is not feasible as it will take too long. Taking external HD along is not convenient. iPad is worse than surface RT as it needs another computer for baby sitting. So I am now looking at 3rd party OEM for products that will suit my need.

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

Willy–The RT has a microSD slot & a usb port. I’d think with some combo of large microSD card & maybe a tiny USB thumb drive you could meet your storage needs? Doesn’t mean it’s right for you, but one of the best things about it is how expandable it is compared to iPad and others.

javaper

It just doesn’t show enough belief in their own product by letting him go. It makes it look as if they couldn’t wait for the lemon to land. To help consumers feel more certain they should have at least waited a couple of months if there really was a problem.

MPinteractiv

Ballmer should fire himself. All this windows 8 fiasco is on him , glad i’m on MacOS.

http://www.firefold.com/ Ricardo Barnhill

With the characterization of Sinofsky, I can imagine all those people who are standing next to him in the picture above to have caption bubbles like “d!ck..” and “Who is this tool?”

http://www.firefold.com/ Ricardo Barnhill

With the characterization of Sinofsky, I can imagine all those people who are standing next to him in the picture above to have caption bubbles like “d!ck..” and “Who is this tool?”

michaeljustgreat

Why be so speculative at inventing facts when these facts do not exist!! Ballmer NEVER EVER fired Sinofsky, so far it is a fact. Unless you have sources inside Microsoft that confirm to the contrary, you simply invent your story!!

You say:
“insider reports of an impromptu meltdown and summary dismissal add up to a more likely scenario that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer had had enough.”
Not a single other media source has confirmed what you call these “insider reports”!! That makes your claim very hard to believe.

wog

he was a idiot because of him we have no start menu ,start menu has been around since the start of the windows back in the days and how suddenly some idiot cames around and decides to change all that !Which i think its stupid Microsoft should listen to their consumers not to ONE guy because we are the one that buy the products ,they should put up the internet survey and ask people do you want metro or start menu not just deciding all that themself

WTF2013LOL

Fire everyone that voted to remove the “start” button from desktop users

http://www.facebook.com/people/Guy-Falkes/100002818174802 Guy Falkes

Its hard to single out one wave of stupidity from another, Microsoft is nothing but a huge wave of ineptness washing back and forth over humanity.

Steve must have been asleep at the wheel, not to have dealt with this years ago.

http://twitter.com/joey89924 joey

But things have changed, as I mentioned there, it works out of the box now.BAV70

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